Sports Archives - Terry White's Tech Blog

jawbone_up_vs_nike_fuelband

After reading my buddy Jason’s review of the Jawbone Up over at BestAppSite.com I decided to order one. Like so many of my fellow Americans I’m simply not active enough. I know it. No need to tell me. The idea behind the Up is that you wear it all day (and night) and it monitors your activity/steps. You can sync it with your smartphone and get reports anytime you want. You can see how many steps you’ve taken on a given day as well as how many hours you’ve slept and if you’re diligent about entering the food you eat, it can monitor that too. If you have friends that use the Up you can become buddies and see each other’s progress. This is where my competitive side kicks in as I want to have as many or more steps than my friends on a given day. Having used the Jawbone Up for a couple of weeks now I can give you guys some feedback. Before I jump into the feedback though, I recently received the Nike Fuelband as a gift! Wow! Now I can compare and contrast between the two and tell you which one I like best at the end…

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I wanted to do a fitness shoot. However, I didn’t want it to be just another shoot in my studio. I started looking at fitness shots like the ones in the Nike ads and I saw a consistent theme. The shots were mostly done outside and against interesting backdrops and walls. This lead me on a search for a location. It didn’t take me long to find a spot. I have to give credit to my photographer buddy David Birdsong for turning me on to this abandoned warehouse in downtown Detroit. I saw a shot of it in his portfolio and had to find out where it was. He gave me all the details.

There are lots of abandon buildings in the Detroit area. However, as you would expect many are boarded up or have no trespassing signs. This gem is wide open. There is a big 10′ open door right at the street with great parking.

I brought my Elinchrom Quadra for lighting as well as a deep octa softbox.

When you shoot in an abandoned building all bets are off when it comes to safety. Everything is “at your own risk”. Remember, technically you’re not supposed to be there.

You have to also be careful not only with your equipment, but also with the debris and broken glass. Falling is definitely not recommended 🙂 We ended up just discarding the mat we brought because it was just too dirty to bring back.

I couldn’t get enough of this place, but I was on a time limit. I had a flight to catch later that evening as well as some more shooting to do in studio.

My beautiful & amazing model Kandice was a total trooper during the shoot. It was pouring down raining, wind blowing, dusty, dirty, etc. the whole time and nothing phased her.

One thing I’ll definitely bring next time is a broom. Also having some rags to wipe down everything after the shoot is over would have been really great.

In the shot above I managed to get more of the surrounding area. In many of the shots I took I wished I had done this more. I was too tightly composed on Kandice.

The Elinchrom gear performed like a champ. No issues with battery life or remote triggering with the Skyport Triggers.

I also have to give credit to my buddy Scott Kelby for his recommendation of hiring an off duty cop for security and keeping people off the set. It was great peace of mind to look over and see that unmarked police car the whole time 🙂 While having security could be considered overkill you have to remember that most abandoned buildings aren’t in the best of neighborhoods. What would you do if two guys walked in, hands in their pockets and said ‘hand over your camera and all of your money?”